One quick note before we start, we now have Nobleblood Merch.

I am so excited about all of it.

Personally, I cannot wait for my pins and mugs to come in the mail.

The link for the store is in the episode description and pinned on the Nobleblood Twitter account.

And as always, just a quick reminder, you can also support the show on Patreon if you

want access to bibliographies, episode scripts, and other fun bonus content.

But of course, the best support you can give to the show is just listening and I am so grateful for you.

Let's get started.

Welcome to Nobleblood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Myelt from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion is advised.

The Baron of Lancaster and the Baron of Warwick walked a man with ropes around his wrists to the top of a hill on a warm, June morning.

The two barons were quiet as they walked, listening to the monotonous, deadening pace of their footsteps in the grass.

The prisoner was also silent, no tears, no begging, same as it had been during his trial just a few days prior at Warwick's castle,

where a handful of other nobles had condemned the prisoner to death.

The word trial is loosely applied here.

There was no judge, no representation for the defendant.

They said that the charge was disobeying the terms of an ordinance they had agreed upon with the king.

But everyone involved knew what the real charge was, being the king's favorite, occupying all of his attention,

receiving an endless stream of his money and his favor.

King Edward II was devoted to this man in a way that he never was to anyone else in his life, not even his wife.

Everyone knew who the real love of the king's life was.

And so Pierce Gaviston, first Earl of Cornwall, was sentenced to death.

...